A 19-year-old was sentenced on August 24 to four and a half-years imprisonment for serious sexual offences, including sodomy and serious indecent assault.

Lord Chief Justice Whitten QC sentenced him at the Nuku’alofa Supreme Court.

This was after he pleaded guilty in July to three offences of serious indecent assault, serious housebreaking and sodomy committed, on two victims in Tongatapu.

He was intoxicated at the time of the offending.

The Lord Chief Justice directed the identity of the victims must not be published in Tonga.

A pre-sentence report stated the defendant's history of alcohol abuse since he was 11-years old. He reportedly sniffed glue and was considered likely to use illicit drugs when available.


"After taking into account the overall criminality of the offending and what follows in respect of suspension, I do not consider that the resulting sentence can be considered a 'crushing' first period of imprisonment," said the Chief Justice.

The defendant was sentenced to four and a half-years imprisonment. 

"Even though the defendant was 18 at the time of offending and therefore not strictly speaking a 'child' as defined by the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, I have nonetheless considered the relevant principles of the Convention in arriving at the above sentence formulation, including that imprisonment of a child shall be used only as a measure of last resort and for the shortest appropriate period of time."

“In addition, he is likely to take the opportunity for rehabilitation not only in respect of the instant offences, but also his underlying alcohol and other substance abuse problems, which have been a major factor in the downward spiral to his current plight, said the Lord Chief Justice.

He suspended the final two-years of the sentence for three-years, on conditions that the youth attends courses on alcohol, sexual and drug abuse.

Failure to comply with the above conditions may result in the suspension being rescinded and the defendant required to serve the balance of his sentence, he said.

Due to his young age, the Lord Chief Justice also directed that the offender be kept separate from the adult inmates to the greatest extent possible and 
receive rehabilitative counselling as may be available, during his prison term.